Born in the US to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan rejected her mother’s expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She chose to write fiction instead. Her novels are The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and Saving Fish from Drowning. She is also the author of a memoir, The Opposite of Fate, two children’s books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat, and numerous articles. Ms. Tan also wrote the libretto for The Bonesetter’s Daughter, which had its world premiere in September 2008 with the San Francisco Opera. Prior to their disbanding, she served as lead rhythm dominatrix, backup singer, and second tambourine with the literary garage band, the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose members included Stephen King, Dave Barry, and Scott Turow. Her newest novel, The Valley of Amazement, moves between the dazzling world of courtesans in turn-of-the-century Shanghai, a remote Chinese mountain village, and the rough-hewn streets of nineteenth-century San Francisco.